Thursday, February 24 2005 15:59 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Chennai: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa today (Feb 24, 2005) decided to go ahead with the permanent rehabilitation package for tsunami-affected fishermen, including mechanised boat owners, "hoping that the Centre will reimburse the State for the expenditure incurred."

In a statement, she said under the package, fishermen, whose catamarans were fully damaged, would be sanctioned fifty per cent subsidy, subject to a maximum of Rs 1.5 lakh and a minimum of Rs 75,000.

Replacement of fully damaged or lost mechanised boats would be taken up with a subsidy of 35 per cent of the total cost, restricting the subsidy to a maximum of Rs 5, 00000 lakh per boat, she said adding repairs of mechanised boats would be taken up with a subsidy at 60 per cent of the assessed damage restricted to a maximum subsidy of Rs 3 lakh per unit.

She said, "The subsidy would be released to individual fishermen directly and steps would be taken to ensure that the assets are procured immediately," and wherever they wanted, arrangements would be made to send their applications to the public sector banks to enable them to get the sanctioned loan.

Blaming the Centre for the delay in undertaking the permanent rehabilitation measures for fishermen, she said it was unfortunate that when her Government had taken up permanent rehabilitation measures in full swing, the procedural changes indicated by the Centre had delayed the work.

While the Centre had increased the subsidy for purchasing catamarans from 35 to 50 per cent and routed the subsidy through the State Government, it struck to its stand that in case of mechanised boats, subsidy would be maintained at 35 per cent and would be disbursed through nationalised bank and not through the State Government.

Jayalalithaa said she had taken up the matter with the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, asking him to adopt the same procedure for mechanised boat owners also.

"I had also requested that the issue could not be prolonged any further and the same procedure accepted for small fishing craft costing up to Rs 1.5 lakh may be made applicable in the case of mechanised boats and the funds may be released to the State Government," she said.

The final view taken by the Centre on the matter was not yet known, she said.She reiterated her often-repeated demand that the fishermen should be fully subsidised for their losses.

With today's package, the State Government had sanctioned Rs 550.27 crore as total assistance for the permanent rehabilitation of fishermen, she said.